Lung Cancer

This study describes the nurse perspective on the importance of biomarker testing for patients with metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and identifies best practices and process gaps.

Nancy Sayegh-Rooney, RN, Pulmonary Nurse Navigator and Certified Tobacco Specialist Counselor at Richmond University Medical Center on Staten Island, New York, leads a 6-week smoking cessation class in the spring and fall that is free and open to the community.

In the longest follow-up on single-agent nivolumab to date, 5-year overall survival (OS) was 16% in patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in updated results from a phase 1b dose-ranging study (CA209-003).

As Dr Mita reported at the 2017 ASCO-SITC Clinical Immuno-Oncology Symposium, plinabulin is a small molecule with tumor-inhibiting and immune-enhancing effects.

Durability of benefit—the possibility for sustained remission in patients with previously incurable disease—is already one of the hallmarks of immunotherapy. According to recent statistical analysis, however, this durability may even exceed expectations.

Around 80% of lung cancer patients experience some level of psychological distress, but regardless of the availability of psychosocial services, nurses can employ simple interventions to reduce the psychological distress of patients and improve their quality of life, according to Andreja C. Skufca-Smrdel, MSc, a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist in the Department of Psycho-oncology at the Institute of Oncology in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Lung cancer patients experience considerable physical and psychosocial sequelae of their treatment in addition to preexisting comorbidities, but there are many opportunities to intervene through surveillance, screening, and management delivered as part of a survivorship program, according to James Huang, MD, a thoracic surgeon at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York, NY.

Racial inequality in healthcare is a long-standing problem that has been studied for decades.

A positive impact is seen in the timeliness to treatment for cancer patients presented at a thoracic multidisciplinary conference.

This work indicates that the use of technology can improve diagnosis of early-stage lung cancer in the ER setting within the general population.